Posts by 100113.1537
156 posts • joined Tuesday 7th July 2009 18:55 GMT
Making the numbers look good.....
Here are the full results:
Category Number Description
Cat 1 65 ” 1. Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+% ”
2 934 ” 2. Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise”
3 2934 ” 3. Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it ”
4 8269 ” 4. No Position”
5 53 ” 5. Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW”
6 15 ” 6. Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify”
7 10 ” 7. Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50%”
Pick from this whatever suits your particular political viewpoint - that is what everyone else does....
There is no "spirit" of a law..
.. only the letter.
Why...
.. do they still bring them down over solid ground! Every time I see a Soyuz landing I wince - talk about giving you a reason to not come home! Anyone know how many they have lost through mis-firing retro-rockets? I can imagine that in the old USSR such numbers would have been well hidden.
Hmmm, 'phones maybe...
I can see the point of most commentards here that hardware has its issues, but I would still like to have something more secure on my smartphone. I am nerdy enough that I don't store passwords in the applications (websites etc.), but there are so many different things i needs secure access to that I do have the log-in names and passwords on my PC. These are semi hidden and my PC is only accessibly via password or fingerprint reader (which I love by the way - much the quickest way to boot up).
However, I am still way too paranoid to have any of these files on my smartphone, which is so much simpler to steal. I really want a fingerprint scanner on my phone so that I can store some of this sensitive information on there and actually use it as an alternative. Since the swipe scanners work so well on my PC (and can't be fooled by the sticky-tape approach) I really can't see why we can't use that together with NFC for much of what these people here are talking about. I am pretty good about taking my phone with me everywhere after all....
Life imitating art?
I can't be the only one to think this is just a rip-off of the Big Bang Theory?
"Houston, this is not a request - we are basically out the door"
Marketing hype - or market manipulation?
I have come to distrust everything I hear/read on Rim/Blackberry because there are too many people with a vested interest in manipulating the share price up or down. I know many people who actually work for RIM and they are just as amazed at what they read.
It is a shame when a company can live or die by rumour (some of it blatant lies released to manipulate the stock price) - even RIM......
Re: So wait
It is hard for the GFP protein to take the correct fluorescent structure when it is not inside the cell so I don't think you can do fluoro-wool using this method. You can see on the piccies that the green only shows up in skin where there is little wool.
It's a great marker protein to look at control of gene expression 'cos you don't need any other chemicals to see where it is and it pretty much stays in the cell where it is expressed. You can get other modifications that emit different colours (blues and reds), but I don't think anyone has that good control over gene expression to make pretty pictures with them all - yet....
Re: dental records are your first port of call,
Facial photographs would be the first port of call in a recently deceased body, but not in a drowning or immersion as bloating of the cutaneous tissues removes most visual features. If someone has been declared missing (as in this case) then dental records would be readily available after the initial match had been made by sex and body characteristics (height and weight estimates are very quick even on partially consumed bodies) and dental records would be the quickest confirmation.
I still doubt that the bombing had any connection with this poor young man's death, but as jumping to conclusions on little evidence is the theme of this thread I think we should avoid doing that.
Re: Proof of rise of the machines?
I want Rouge Twitter server of my own - these grey ones are boring!
TCFKARIM...
Blackberry reported an analyst for doing just this and they were found guilty by the SEC a week or so ago. Still, their share price has been so volatile lately that I doubt anyone would notice....
Oranges are not the only fruit....
I am at a loss here as to why people are only focussing on Corporation Tax - as though this is the only tax on the whatever number of billion pounds Google has in turnover in the UK. Google employ a lot of people in the UK and all of these people pay income tax, plus the employers NI contributions, plus the VAT on everything Google sells in the UK, thus there is a great deal of UK govt revenue already coming from Google.
In a globalised world economy, national taxes on profits are pretty much negligible as if you make your corporation taxes too high, companies move away and if you force them to pay tax where they employ people, they will move where they employ those people. The EU recognised this and - basically - put employment first by making it easier for a company to register in one EU country and then operate in them all. Individual EU countries then competed to get the company registrations by setting corporate taxes low and other countries competed for jobs by setting other taxes low (I think income tax in Luxembourg is pretty high isn't it?). So what if the UK doesn't get a lot of corporation tax from Google - by the sound of things, the UK is getting a lot of other "goods" from them and UK gov is till getting a lovely big wodge of tax.
Posted in British bookworms deem Amazon 'evil'
Re: The eBook Problem - similar to the DVD problem?
Paying a little extra to have multiple formats is working for me with DVD's. I don't have a Blu-Ray player - YET, but on the basis that when I next replace my home theatre system I will probably have Blu-Ray, buying the DVD/Blu-Ray Combo packs for at most a buck or two more is not a bad deal. There is even a licence in there to download a digital copy if I want. I think this is a model book sellers should look at.
Re: Soot.
I think the big problem is that the developed economies have already removed the vast majority of soot from their own industries - smokeless coal, power station scrubbers and low-particulate diesel have cleaned up the air in Europe and North America rather well. It is the developing world that is producing most soot now as there is still large amount of wood-based energy production and many, many new coal-fired power stations.
The chances of getting China and India to reduce soot emissions rest with them having alternative power generation of similar density - which implies gas or nuclear and will probably happen anyway as the local inhabitants demand cleaner air. Cities in India have already banned diesel and two-stroke auto-rikshaws, mandating CNG engines, so it shows it can be done. I don't think we need to worry about supranational bodies mandating this change - which is probably why it is not all that popular......
Missing the critical point...
...in the article that the people with the fulfilling jobs all had 5-15 years of work experience. That is what gets you somewhere - the real-world experience AFTER you have obtained your degree. What we have is unrealistic expectations that you can just get your 'dream job" using your degree skills as soon as you graduate - this is the bollocks that needs to be changed in order to have people understand what they will get back from their degree.
Further, the idea that degrees are job training is something which has only recently arisen. Degrees are not "hard science vs soft arts" but vocational vs non-vocational. Vocational degrees used to be just things like medicine, vet, engineering and pretty much all of the rest was non-vocational - including so-called "hard" sciences such as chemistry and physiscs. People did not choose a career, but chose a subject of study and through that study gained a education in how to learn that helped them succeed in their next job. Professional jobs, such as law and accountancy, were made filled by graduates with any degree and trained them on the job. I had many friends who went through this route after their genetics or biochemistry degrees and said that their analytical skills were highly prized. At the same time, administrative jobs were filled by arts graduates who had learned critical skills through their study of medieval art history - and were probably much better because of it.
Except for the vocational degrees mentioned earlier - degrees are not about subject matter but about learning critical and analytical skills. What has changed in the recent expansion of tertiary education is the elevation of non-degree vocational course to a degree-level. Thus we have degree studies in everything from nursing (marginally relevant as nurses are now expected to do a lot more than just "nurse") to Sports Center Management (which is surely something that does not need a degree course of its own). Thus, we are enticing applicants to "train" for a specific job, and then finding out that to do that job requires a lot more than the degree (even if the demand for job still exists). Thus there is disatisfaction.
Since a return to non-vocational degrees is unlikely, what needs to change is the expectation that degree = instant job in field of study.
Re: Not a surprise
No, but there are Danish windfarms being torn down because of complaints from local people. Did it make them sick or did they just get "sick" of the noise?
Re: List your devices
"When I go on vacation I take a virtual Best Buy store in my carry-on" .
Precisely - when you are going on VACATION and entering the US you might get searched, but you won't get arrested if you can't remember all your bits. This guy was questioned and searched LEAVING the US - they obviously had him targeted and asked him about what he was carrying as part of the interrogation. Charging him with just enough to hold him to allow for a full search of the contents of the media is a good move.
I have travelled a lot into and out of the US and there is usually nothing beyond standard airport security for departures, wherever you are going. This was a targeted stop.
Do Yanks really believe all that old toss about they saw about the UK in Murder She Wrote?
Do Brits believe that everyone in the States live in apartments and have friends just drop in to raid their fridge?
Having moved the the US a few years ago I can tell you that we (brits) have just as many misconceptions from watching telly programs. Seinfeld and Friends it is not, I can tell you!
Tron...
surely has to be in there as a very early consideration of artificial intelligence and what is awareness.
I was always more into SF novels than movies and I spent too much of my youth reading about dystopian futures (which have not come to pass). As an adult working in molecular genetics, Gattaca is probably the best example of an uplifting message nicely hidden in such a way that it is not cloying. My (economist) wife was very worried about watching this with my (genetics researcher) friends as we mercilessly slagged off the ropey science in other movies, but we all left the cinema talking about the concepts not the holes in the technology.
A revolver?
See title
Yes, but...
those messages (and the lack of operability - no pun intended) were/are dammed hard to get around. As an Opera user, there are still sites out there that I need to start IE for. And although I haven't tried Firefox/Chrome for a while, I couldn't get to these sites using those browsers either.
I am happy to admit that I use Opera because I am awkward, but I thought the point of having standards was so that different products could compete on an open playing field. If Opera drop their rendering engine and IE continues to play in its own sandbox, there is not much competition out there any more.
Re: Don't know how you write a BB vs rest article without using "keyboard"
"Of the tens of thousands of apps that are in apps stores only tens have any real benefit to a corporation rather than providing warm fuzzies to those who have mingled their personal data into their work environment (thus Blackberry Balance)."
Excellent point. If I see one more person scream about the millions of apps in the iTunes Store or Google Play, I think I might just throw up. The same ten apps copied by 500 different suppliers/developers is still just 10 apps! I had programs on my Palm (before they were called apps) that I still can't find for my Android smartphone - although I am sure they might be out there if I can only wade through the thousands of (cr)apps that clutter the place up first.......
Horses for courses
I have a Win7 notebook, an Android smartphone and an iPad. One for work, one for communication and one for entertainment. Yes, there is cross-over and when I am not at my desk the smartphone sort of fills in for the other two, but my biggest issue was getting the smartphone and the PC to synch now that everyone tells me to "keep it all in the cloud". I don't do that. I am responsible for my own data, thank you very much. I missed the ease with which Palm did that, but it has just meant that I need to have a different PIM on the smartphone so that I can still synch with my PC. Not a problem, just an expense (and not too big an expense at that).
Some people want everything in one place (and/or in one OS) and it is good that they can do that, but for those of who don't, we still have an option. I've never had a Blackberry, but I know that I could (since I am sure that there are ways to make it work the way I want it to) and I am glad that they are still a going concern as competition is generally a good thing in itself.
And, as a final note, funny how they have become TCOKARIM and LIM* these days - how the world changes!
*For anyone of tender years, previous incarnations of TCOKARIM were so fond of patent litigation that that were referred to as Lawsuits In Motion by El Reg. This was something Apple and Samsung saw as a market they wanted to capture - which they have done quite successfully.
Been saying for how long?
Weren't fuel cells "5 years away" 10 years ago? Sadly this is another scream for support for something which has yet to live up to overblown promises.
I really like the idea of fuel-cells driving electric motors and I supported the development of the Chevy Volt simply because it separated the electric drive train from the means of 'leccy generation so that petrol/diesel generators could be replaced by fuels cells "when they came along". But have you seen how much they cost? And that includes a whacking great government subsidy as well
The tech I really like is fuel cells driven by methanol (a nice liquid fuel) and for a while this looked possible as well (was it Sony who had a laptop you refuelled with a cigarette lighter-sized methanol cartridge?). Another thing we were all going to be using in 5 years. How long ago was that now?
I am afraid this is one I will believe only when I see it.
Work or play?
I think we are back to what are you doing with it!
For play (that is, entertainment via browsing and games) the finger works fine in tablets and you don't have to keep track of where your stylus is. For work, when you have a lot of information in the screen and/or need some precision on what you are doing, then a stylus gives you that precision.
Remember, Jobs only went anti-stylus after the Apple Newton died in its infancy (it was beaten up by Palm among others which proved to be extremely popular using a very basic stylus). Yes, smartphones have since killed Palm and the other PDAs, but not because they didn't use a stylus and not for a long time.
Re: Stagnating market does not preclude winners
Which part of "PC shipments up 8% worldwide in the last quarter" didn't you read? The PC is not a stagnant market, just not as hot as non-PC devices. You really need to get out of the North America/EMEA mindset and realize that just because you aren't planning on buying a new PC, other people are.
Smartphones and tablets are excellent entertainment/communication devices for people who don't need a PC - which is a shed-load of people in North America and Europe who have bought PCs in the past. But in Asia, there are still millions of people for whom a PC is still what they need - and they don't have one! This is where Lenovo and Acer are based and they realize this is where their growth lies.
When IBM sold off its PC sector to Lenovo they were making a smart move for a developed world company and when Lenovo bought it, they were making a smart move for an Asian-based company. These figures pretty much bear that out.
Re: It appears that there are a lot of people who don't know what regulation is for.
Why is it that so many people think that Fox "News" would not be allowed in a country with "regulations"?
Apart from the fact that Fox News survives because people watch it (hence advertising revenue) as opposed to paid for by government subsidy (PBS in the US which very few people watch), the US is actually a very heavily regulated broadcasting environment. You only have to go back to the "wardrobe malfunction" during the Superbowl where hundreds (possibly thousands) of local NBC affiliates (broadcasting stations - the US doesn't have "national" broadcasters as such) were fined $25,000 EACH by the FCC because of one complaint.
For those who have not lived in the US, they have a different model of regulation from Europe, but un-regulated it is not. Using Fox News as the bogey-man for what a un-regulated UK broadcast market would look like just shows your own predjudices, I am afraid. It might be junk (well, OK, it IS junk), but it follows the same rules as all of the other junk out there.
Hmmm, regulatory capture vs regime uncertainty
Interesting point, DAM. I am often to be heard extolling regulations because they give the kind of certainty that developers need to know what "hoops they have to jump though" even at the same time as I condemn the kind of regulatory creep that leaves entrenched players in the market with altogether too much power (regulatory capture). I fear there is no simple answer, but being aware of both sides of the issue is valuable.
[I don't mean to say these two concepts are antithetical - only that in applying one, you can create problems affecting the other].
Agree with Tim or not, his articles do get people thinking - and provide some nice commentary as well.
Re: Obviously Andrew hates small businessmen and jobs
Erm, this article was written by Tim Worstall. Not sure if you are just trolling or really do have an Andrew Orlowski fixation, but try to get it right!
Re: Are iPads the real story?
The paper vs e-book is very clearly explained in the original post - there are different requirements for reading and for reference. Having a number of books open and flicking back and to (what is needed for reference) is far easier with paper - and you are not carrying these around as this is being done at home or in your office etc.
Besides, with a tablet there are serious issues with multi-tasking and having multiple windows open. I have two screens and still have problems when drafting/editing and need multiple references to look up as I work. I have an iPad and it isn't useful for my work precisely because of the need to switch between programs and documents - as far as I know, the other tablets are similar (my phone is Android). Other people have different requirements so maybe it will work for them, but that's why I am not sure I like the idea of going with a single piece of technology. One size does not fit all.
Corporation tax is not the only tax!
Don't Google employ people in the UK? Don't these people pay income tax etc.? Don't all products sold om the UK have VAT levied? The UK govt. gets plenty of tax from Google and Starbucks and Amazon etc. This is just a case of political grandstanding.
Re: The
Boris, I think you are missing the point - tax systems are about raising revenue not about being fair.
Governments want to raise revenue to do spend on things they think will get hem re-elected, but they have to do this is the most inoffensive way - or they won't get re-elected. Probably the "fairest" way to generate revenue would be consumption taxes (VAT etc.) because richer people buy more stuff and will therefore pay more tax, but this has lots of other knock-on effects - the biggest of which (in the eyes of the politicians) is that the people who enact such a tax get roundly villified (although the other political parties seem awfully fond of the taxes once they get into power).
Re: It pays to be nice
Bing nice works once you have actually got to a real person - the problem is getting stuck into the - seemingly - never-ending loops of machine responses. I used to be OK with pushing numbers on a key-pad, but then when everyone started using one-piece or cell-phones, (which meant you had to take the phone away from your ear to enter the numbers) they started getting you to use words. What a nightmare! It seems as though voice recognition is still not all it is cracked up to be....
My wife remembers being told to refer to Verizon when she was ringing up to complain abut service on her Nextel subscription as a way of getting a faster response. You can guess this is a few years ago now (does anyone remember Nextel?), but maybe you could say you wished you had bought a Samsung and see if you get a better response.....
Re: Translation
Yep. Got it in one. If they say "I want a new shiny thing" what chance do you think they would have of getting it? But by saying it is a matter of reliability (surely more to do with the carrier than anything else) no-one will question them.
I wonder how much more iPhones cost than BBs?
A bit late...
I was playing a Lord of the Rings video slot in Las Vegas last year!
It was quite fun actually, with bonus games involving clips from the movies.
Re: @Scott
I feel a bit the same. With my contact lenses in I have excellent distance vision, but my arms have been getting shorter and shorter over the years, meaning I now need reading glasses. I ditched the idea of laser surgery since I can read quite well with my lenses out (good for reading in bed at night. However, I need different strength reading glasses for computer work as the screen is further away (and I have obviously lost even more flexibility in my inbuilt lenses), but without my contacts I need to hunch forward in my chair!
A flexible lens (replacing either my contacts or my own lens) would be rather useful, I think.
Re: The jury
Which is why they ALL get appealed. More work (and money) for the lawyers.
Didn't the US govt invite a film director in to make a movie about the actual operation that got Bin Laden and give them access to all the operational records? Seems a bit unfair to then reprimand some of the guys who did the deal themselves for a bit advice to make a computer game....
Re: human-v-Neanderthal struggle
Not sure about evolutionary pressure on cock size, but I remember a wonderful guest lecture on inheritance of bollock size in primates. This was one guest lecture that was both well attended and got rapt attention!
Shame I can't remember any of the details anymore - memory beyond 40 years was not much of an advantageous trait when the life expectancy was 35 or so!
Lost her nest-egg?
Going by her numbers, she says she lost 105k on shares that went down by 8$, that means about 13k shares. 13k shares at 42 (forgotten what they opened at, but it will do) is over half a million, but if she sold at 34 she got $452,000 back. She is hardly destitute and has hardly "lost her life-savings".
She is now looking to get 1.9 m (let's say 1.2 after legal fees and her lawyers cut) so over twice as much as she invested, plus she still has the 450k she got from selling the shares. Not a bad deal if she wins....
And we wonder why there are so many lawyers around.
Stirred!
Shaking vs stirring completely alters the flavour due to increased oxidation. Think about decanting red wine (or letting it breath after opening) and you can understand this effect. At the end of the day it is all personal preference - but the flavours are very different.
Re: Closer to IM format ?
Absolutely! I never used Gmail - and now I know why! This is what every other email client has been doing for - well - ever.
Why $?
Because if you want to buy one, you go through their site in HK which prices things in $ - or someone like DX who price in $ or Euro's. Haven't bought a Lenovo as they are still a bit more expensive than the no-name frankenphones, but it is attractive given that they are a named manufacturer (even if not Samsung or HTC).
Bit early on your estimate for Sandy....
Sandy isn't due until after the weekend, although there will be plenty of wind and rain up the coast before then.
We noticed very slow network speeds in general around 12.30 am last night here in Canada, but it is no problem now.
Re: Bit late aren't they?
Actually, I have worked in development and tech transfer for the past 10 years and IP management is the critical factor for access to any new technology. Sorry for all of you IT-obsessed freetards, but the rest of the world still needs to protect inventions in order to get investment funds to develop them into products.
If any of you took the trouble to study and understand the IP system instead of just whinging about Apple/Samsung or whoever, you might notice that respect for property - including intellectual property - is the basis for a functional society. The few exceptions I am sure you will point to are no reason to abandon one of the bedrocks human development.
Bit late aren't they?
Sorry, but the Brit IP office are way too late to this party - WIPO have been doing this for years (I have myself been a small part of it) and it has been well supported by plenty of other countries (Japan springs to mind as well as the US).
As someone who has worked a lot in development, knowledge of IP is critical to inward investment - nobody will do a deal with you for technology if you cannot show you will protect it, simple as that. Just because you think the current patent wars between Samsung and Apple are an expensive joke, don't forget what IP protection is really all about - reward for invention and encouraging investment in new ideas. Even China has now moved from being the world's biggest pirate to enforcing IP laws with real vigour (they have serious criminal penalties for copyright infringement) now that they are beginning to invent/create themselves.
Posted in Skype touts FREE* Wi-Fi across the UK
Simple enough for who?
Simple enough for you (and most people who read the Reg).
What about the people who aren't technically-experienced? How much would they pay for the kit and set-up (plus maintenance) to a third party? For a tenner a month, how many hours of technical support would you get?
My reading of this is that they (Wicoms/Skype) do all the work and for your tenner you give customers the same kind of access the big boys give. Tempting for a lot of the people I know running small customer-related businesses.
Forget US-EU harmonization.....
there is still no agreement on European patents yet!
Each country still has to ratify each patent application - the only common element is the review by the EPO. Admittedly, the hold-up is mostly about which languages patents have to be translated into, but so far, all patent legislation in the world in national.
All they are talking about is the classification system to make searching for prior art easier. As someone who has done a lot of searching for prior art, this probably won't make a lot of difference as both the EU and US use the IPC classification already, but let's see how it comes out in the wash. My big worry is how they will handle the existing databases - is everything going to be re-coded?
As to the various merits of the US vs EU system, I don't think either of them can claim any moral high ground and both have been guilty of stupid decisions in the past. Remember it was a German court that accepted the doctored photos as evidence of infringement in Apple's case against Samsung (which just goes to show how non-European the EU system is as other countries threw the case out).
Re: Isn't it about attention?
I remember one flight attendant start off with "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now that I have your attention, please listen to this important safety information." It worked with a a lot of the passengers grinning and made for rather a nice atmosphere on the flight!
Re: Anders Breivik
Breivik will be in solitary confinement so unlikely to suffer from fellow inmates anger, but these are images from the high security jail he will in - not quite as nice as the images linked to above:
http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/22juli/Utilregnelig-Breivik-kan-bli-fire-ganger-sa-dyr-6971549.html
